Leasehold Conveyancing in Alderley Edge - Get a Quote from the leasehold experts approved by your lender

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When it comes to leasehold conveyancing in Alderley Edge, you will need to appoint a conveyancing solicitor with leasehold experience. Whether your mortgage company is to be Santander, Yorkshire Building Society or Nationwide be sure to find a lawyer on their approved list. Feel free to use our search tool

Examples of recent questions relating to leasehold conveyancing in Alderley Edge

I only have Seventy years unexpired on my flat in Alderley Edge. I now wish to get lease extension but my freeholder is absent. What options are available to me?

If you meet the appropriate requirements, under the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 you can submit an application to the County Court for an order to dispense with the service of the initial notice. This will enable the lease to be granted an extra 90 years by the magistrate. However, you will be required to prove that you have made all reasonable attempts to track down the lessor. In some cases an enquiry agent would be helpful to try and locate and prepare an expert document to be used as evidence that the landlord can not be located. It is advisable to get professional help from a solicitor in relation to investigating the landlord’s disappearance and the vesting order request to the County Court covering Alderley Edge.

Estate agents have just been given the go-ahead to market my ground floor flat in Alderley Edge.Conveyancing lawyers have not yet been instructed but I have just had a quarterly service charge demand – what should I do?

It best that you pay the service charge as normal because all ground rent and service charges will be apportioned on completion, so you will be reimbursed by the buyer for the period running from after the completion date to the next payment date. Most management companies will not acknowledge the buyer unless the service charges have been paid and are up to date so it is important for both buyer and seller for the seller to show that they are up to date. Having a clear account will assist your cause and will leave you no worse off financially.

I am a negotiator for a reputable estate agent office in Alderley Edge where we see a few leasehold sales derailed due to leases having less than 80 years remaining. I have been given conflicting advice from local Alderley Edge conveyancing firms. Could you shed some light as to whether the seller of a flat can commence the lease extension formalities for the buyer?

Provided that the seller has been the owner for at least 2 years it is possible, to serve a Section 42 notice to commence the lease extension process and assign the benefit of the notice to the purchaser. This means that the proposed purchaser can avoid having to wait 2 years to extend their lease. Both sets of lawyers will agree to form of assignment. The assignment needs to be completed before, or at the same time as completion of the sale.

An alternative approach is to extend the lease informally by agreement with the landlord either before or after the sale. If you are informally negotiating there are no rules and so you cannot insist on the landlord agreeing to grant an extension or transferring the benefit of an agreement to the purchaser.

Can you provide any top tips for leasehold conveyancing in Alderley Edge from the point of view of speeding up the sale process?

  • A significant proportion of the frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Alderley Edge can be bypassed where you instruct lawyers as soon as your agents start marketing the property and request that they start to collate the leasehold information which will be required by the buyers solicitors.
  • Many landlords or Management Companies in Alderley Edge levy fees for providing management packs for a leasehold property. You or your lawyers should discover the fee that they propose to charge. The management information can be applied for on or before finding a buyer, thus reducing delays. The average time it takes to obtain the necessary information is three weeks. It is the most common reason for frustration in leasehold conveyancing in Alderley Edge.
  • A minority of Alderley Edge leases require Landlord’s consent to the sale and approval of the buyers. If this applies to your lease, it would be prudent to place the estate agents on notice to make sure that the purchasers obtain financial (bank) and professional references. Any bank reference will need to confirm that the buyers are financially capable of paying the yearly service charge and the actual amount of the service charge should be quoted in the bank’s letter. You will therefore need to provide your estate agents with the actual amount of the service charge so that they can pass this information on to the purchasers or their lawyers.
  • If you have had any disputes with your freeholder or managing agents it is very important that these are resolved prior to the flat being marketed. The purchasers and their solicitors will be concerned about purchasing a property where a dispute is ongoing. You will have to accept that you will have to pay any arrears of service charge or resolve the dispute prior to completion of the sale. It is therefore preferable to have any dispute settled prior to the contract papers being issued to the buyers’ solicitors. You will still have to reveal details of the dispute to the buyers, but it is clearly preferable to reveal the dispute as historic as opposed to unsettled.
  • You may think that you are aware of the number of years left on your lease but it would be wise to double-check via your conveyancers. A buyer’s conveyancer will not be happy to advise their client to to exchange contracts if the lease term is below 80 years. In the circumstances it is important at an early stage that you identify whether the lease for your property needs extending. If it does, contact your solicitors before you put your premises on the market for sale.

    • What makes a Alderley Edge lease unmortgageable?

    Leasehold conveyancing in Alderley Edge is not unique. Most leases is drafted differently and legal mistakes in the legal wording can result in certain sections are not included. For example, if your lease is missing any of the following, it could be defective:

    • Repairing obligations to or maintain parts of the building
    • A duty to insure the building
    • A provision for the recovery of money spent for the benefit of another party.
    • Service charge per centages that don't add up correctly leaving a shortfall

    You could have a problem when selling your property if you have a defective lease primarily because it impacts on the ability to obtain a mortgage on the property. Yorkshire Building Society, Norwich and Peterborough Building Society, and Aldermore all have very detailed requirements when it comes to what is expected in a lease. Where a lender has been advised by their lawyers that the lease is problematic they may refuse to grant the mortgage, obliging the buyer to withdraw.

    I purchased a split level flat in Alderley Edge, conveyancing having been completed 4 years ago. Can you shed any light on how much the price could be for a 90 year extension to my lease? Equivalent properties in Alderley Edge with an extended lease are worth £267,000. The average or mid-range amount of ground rent is £60 invoiced annually. The lease terminates on 21st October 2090

    You have 65 years left to run we estimate the price of your lease extension to range between £14,300 and £16,400 as well as plus your own and the landlord's "reasonable" professional fees.

    The figure above a general guide to costs for extending a lease, but we cannot give you a more accurate figure in the absence of comprehensive due diligence. Do not use this information in a Notice of Claim or as an informal offer. There are no doubt other concerns that need to be considered and you obviously should be as accurate as possible in your negotiations. Please do not move forward based on this information without first getting professional advice.

    Other Topics

    Lease Extensions in Alderley Edge